Lunch Money
10/26/2025
The days spent sailing
In my youth, in the late 1950's, I spent many hours leafing
through all the sailing and yachting magazines I could get a hold of, soaking
up the images and stories of boats large and small, learning nautical terms and
theory and dreaming of one day owning my own sailboat and sailing the seas.
Probably not an unusual dream for a small town boy from Santa Paula, CA a town
with a billboard as you entered the city limits with the banner, "Welcome
to Santa Paula the lemon capital of the world". When I was old enough, I
joined Sea Scouts, learned how to tie a bowline along with many other nautical
skills and terminology. Being an inland town, our troop did not have a boat of
any kind so the practical part of actually handling a vessel never really happened.
I grew up, the dream faded but not completely.
Fast forward to my 20's, having dropped out of college,
where I was majoring in drinking beer and chasing coeds, I found myself back in
my old home town, working in an auto parts store and still pretty much just
drinking beer and trying to get laid. It was 1965 and Uncle Sam got wind of my
predicament and decided that I needed to be in the Army and spend some time in
Vietnam. Towards the end of boot camp where I was scheduled to go to Combat
Infantry School next, I got called into the First Sergeant's office where I was
informed that because I tested high for mechanical aptitude, I was not going to
Infantry School but instead was going to Ft Eustis VA to become a Marine
Engineer. Hell, I didn't even know the Army had boats, but yup, they do. All
kinds of support vessels, landing craft and amphibians. So off I went and was
duly trained, certified and shipped off to Cam Rahn Bay Vietnam to be part of
MMAV (Marine Maintenance Activity Vietnam) where I did a variety of different
jobs around various watercraft.
Upon return to the States, the experience and training, Army
and Sea Scouts, helped me get a job working as a Harbor Patrolman in Channel
Islands Harbor. I honed my operator skills and learned marine rescue boat
operation. I spent almost 12 yrs working as a Harbor Patrolman in three
different Harbors on the water, every workday, and surrounded by yachts,
working boats, fishing boats along with being immersed in marine
culture.
This led to my being able to own my first real boat a 26’
Columbia sloop named Nicole. She was a good starter boat. Roomy, handled well
and seaworthy. The perfect introduction for me to the world of coastal sailing.
I feared when my daughter Andrea was born that we would have to sell Nicole and
spend time at home raising a child. But my wife insisted we keep Nicole and
sail her along with having a home and raising Andrea. And so we did, then sold
Nicole and bought a 31 Grampian ketch, Nightfall. We became a sailing family.
One thing led to another and eventually we took the leap.
Sold the house and after much research ordered a brand new Downeast 38 cutter. It
was truly a dream come true. She was unique in many ways in that I traveled to
factory when she was being built and had them do things not found on other
Downeast 38’s like converting the nav station to a quarter cabin to give Andrea
her own room. We named her Katherine. Yup, we sold it all and moved aboard. We
spent 5 ½ years sailing the California coast and offshore islands. Still
working but weekends vacations were at sea. It was magical, wonderful, hard
work and some of the best years of my life. Katherine was magnificent and very
forgiving. There were times of terror, absolute joy, family bonding and pride. I
often say now that you could not pay me enough money to give up all the
memories I had with Katherine and you couldn’t pay me enough money to do it
again.
A few months ago, a friend suggested I go to the local
independent theater and see a particular movie. It was a Japanese movie called
After Life. It takes place in a small, mid-20th century social-service-style
structure which is a way station between life and death. Every Monday, a group
of recently deceased people check-in: the social workers in the lodge ask them
to go back over their life and choose one single memory to take into the
afterlife. They are given just a couple of days to identify their happiest
memory, after which the workers design, stage and film them. In this way, the
souls will be able to re-experience this moment for eternity, forgetting the
rest of their life. They will spend eternity within their happiest memory. Guides recreate the memories chosen by filming
on sets with basic stage props (cotton balls serve as clouds for the pilot; an
audio recording of street noise is played while the old man stands in a trolley
and social workers jostle the trolley to replicate movement). The hosted souls
watch the films of their recreated memories in a screening room, and as soon as
each person sees their own, they vanish. The film left me wondering what memory
I would choose. The birth of my children, falling in love, one of my amazing
travel journeys. I pondered the question only briefly and settled, without any doubt,
on this memory:
We had sailed Katherine to San Migual Island the western
most of the islands in Channel Islands Nation Park. No small feat in that it is
approximately 70 miles offshore and noted for windy, crappy weather and rough
seas. We sailed up the leeward side of the four island chain that make up the
park spending one night on anchor at Santa Cruz Island.
We arrived at Cutler Harbor, San Miguel Island, the next
day, a large well protected but open roadstead, dropped anchor and settled in.
Not another soul in sight. After some
lunch, we rowed ashore in our dingy, Cuyler has no docks or facilities of any
kind, where we met up with the only other soul on the Island a newly hired NPS
Ranger. Off we all went to spend hours touring the Island and it’s rugged
beauty. We came back to Cuyler via a long, beautiful, protected beach on the
leeward side of the Island. It was a glorious sunny day, sparkling ocean on our
right and island wilderness on our left. Before long, I spied Katherine peacefully
riding anchor in the harbor and saw the only foot prints in the white pristine
sand were those of Andrea, running ahead of us. The footprints lead to a sock
and sandals in the sand, the shirt, then pants all leading to my beautiful 3 year old
daughter, running butt naked along the beach chasing sea gulls, Cuyler and
Katherine on one side, Island on the other, beautifully clear sky above filled
with white fluffy clouds and squawking gulls above.
Arriving back at our dingy on the beach, we thanked the
Ranger, rowed back to Katherine and settled in for the rest of the afternoon and
night. I had heard of the legendary wind and fog that frequents San Miguel but
never had I experienced anything like that night on anchor. The water in the
anchorage was flat, and our anchor well set, but the wind blew 25-30 kts all
night and the fog so thick you couldn’t see more than 100ft. Just plain weird.
Sunrise brought the halt of the strong winds and after breakfast, the fog began
to lift, and we lifted anchor and set sail back to Santa Cruz Island.
The channel between Santa Cruz and San Miguel can be
extremely rough but on this day the sailing Gods gave us beautiful weather.
Clear blue skies with fluffy clouds scattered around, warm temperature, flat seas and a pleasant 15kt wind off the
starboard beam. Katherine’s sails were well set, and our self-steering wind
vane was keeping her on a true course for Santa Cruz. Andrea was sitting near the
companion way reading as was her Mom. I had turned on the stereo with Christopher
Cross’s “sailing” filling the air. I was
standing near the helm soaking all this in when I was hit with a strong, clear,
deep, undeniable feeling. Everything, absolutely everything about this moment
was perfect and exactly as it should have been. And each of us were exactly
where we were meant to be and as much a part of it all as anything else. I had
never felt so centered, so grounded so peaceful in my life. For a brief moment,
I glimpsed what I believe is the perfection of the universe. It was the perfect
day.
No long after having Katherine I had mounted a plaque I had
found with these words from ancient Phoenicia
“The Gods do not account against man’s allotted time on
earth the days spent sailing”
I think they were onto something.
